In our country these days, it's not safe to think. This new book makes you think -- and worry

How green was my valley when patriotism meant loving my country and nationalism meant identifying with its civilisational essence. We were all patriots and nationalists when we fought for -- or read about -- our country's independence. We were patriots and nationalists when we built the great edifice of our Constitution, perhaps the most egalitarian in the world, and gave unto ourselves a polity based on equality for all, justice for all. We had our differences, for we were a rainbow nation with a phantasmagoria of religions, races, languages, cuisines, attires and traditions. But we were a nation. And it was a wonderful feeling.

From those days of enlightenment, how and when and why did we redefine nationalism as a measure of partisanship? Who diluted nationalism with religiosity and gave the slogan Bharat Mata Ki Jai a theological twist? That was a slogan everyone shouted with pride once upon a time. How and when and why was it reduced to an expression of narrow parochialism? Bharat Mata should have belonged -- and did belong -- to all her citizens. How was she hijacked by political partisans who manipulate religious emotions for political gain?

These and other disturbing questions are brought up by a handsome new book comprising three outstanding essays. On Nationalism by Romila Thapar, A.G.Noorani and Sadanand Menon (Aleph Book company) is a celebration and a lamentation at the same time -- celebration of the India that was and lamentation over the India that is getting fissured by the day.

In a closely argued think piece, Romila Thapar exposes the shadowlines of 'subnationalism' which is based on separate Muslim, Hindu, Sikh assertions, and 'pseudonationalism' which "exaggerates the importance of a single history of one religious community as being the pre-eminent history of the nation". Her historical account of the way the nation concept developed is masterly. She draws attention to British philosopher-historian Eric Hobsbawm's observation that history is reconstructed in ways that suit the ideology of nationalism -- precisely what we have been witnessing in recent years.

Thapar boldly asserts that India had "no single sacred text since Hindu sects were not religions of the book. But today the Bhagvad Gita is being described as the 'national' book which... conflates nationalism with religion, despite their being distinct".

Lawyer-historian-author A.G.Noorani starts by going for the jugular: India is witnessing today, he says, what America went through in the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy unleashed irresponsible attacks on the patriotism and nationalism of its citizens, condemning a great many honorable Americans as "un-American".

Having set the stage, Noorani launches into an erudite exposition of the law of sedition and how it led to convolutions in Indian democracy. What Romila Thapar explained -- that criticising government cannot be considered seditious or anti-national -- is elaborated by Noorani who finds the law of sedition "in an unholy mess". Citing a wide range of texts, from the famous Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar (the Forward Communist Party leader had made an explosive speech in 1953 on "the dogs of the CID" and "Congress goondas") to Savarkar's eulogy of Mother India as Pitribhu and Punyabhu (Fatherland and Holy Land), he is emphatic in his final pronouncement: "The only nationalism that deserves our support is Indian nationalism".

Sadanand Menon says it all in the very title of his eminently readable essay, "From national culture to cultural nationalism". He reminds us that "ultra-nationalism" had been there from the early days of the national movement. Also that devotion towards an abstract Bharat Mata is in sharp contrast to the violence inflicted on women during rapes, riots and caste retributions which is "of an order seldom witnessed before in any part of the world". A grim picture emerges as he observes that "a key component of the politics of cultural nationalism resides in its ability to create an enemy". Surveying a landscape crawling with enemies, Menon is tactful enough to take shelter behind Jean-Paul Sartre and indirectly imply a scary question: India was the name of a country; will we take care that it does not become the name of a nervous disease?

Questions arising from this book are scary not only because they concern the very survival of India as a modern, constitutional democracy, but also because they are raised by scholars in scholarly, academic tones. The absence of hyperbole somehow adds to the gravity of the dangers they point out. On Nationalism is an invitation to think -- at a time when thinking has become risky.

Was it football's politics that made Messi cry? Politicians have ruined Indian sports, too

What makes football superior to cricket? Both are run commercially these days, but football continues to be "the beautiful game" loved by all. Cricket developed on its British upperclassness, persuading colonial subjects to flatter the rulers by imitation until geniuses like N.Sreenivasan and Lalit Modi turned the game into the most profitable Indian business. By contrast, football has a naturalness no other game has; from Africa and Latin America to Europe and Asia, kids take instinctively to kicking a ball around. That's why Bradman is admired, but Pele is worshipped. That's why the world cried with Messi when his spotkick went wild in the Copa America final against Chile.

For Messi and Argentina this was the fourth defeat in an international final. How could he not cry his heart out? How could he not announce, in an emotional moment, that he was retiring from playing for Argentina? That announcement sent shudders across Argentina for the World Cup will be up for grabs in Russia just two years from now. The President of Argentina phoned Messi and requested him to stay on. The God of Argentina, Maradonna, declared that Messi "will go to Russia in form to be world champion". He went on to blame the country's football association for the "disaster Argentine football has become".

That is familiar territory for us because there is not a single sport in India that has not been turned into a disaster by the association concerned. Our most celebrated association official, Lalit Modi, has been so successful that he cannot even set foot in the country. Hockey, boxing, athletics, tennis, badminton, wrestling, archery, judo, rowing, cycling, table tennis have all been turned into arenas for politicians to showcase their ego. The Archery Association was headed by BJP's V.K.Malhotra for more than 40 years; he quit last year only because he was appointed head of the All-India Council of Sports. At the head of the Football Federation is NCP politician, Praful Patel. How can football do any better than Air-India did under him?

The sense of loss becomes acute when we realise how glorious Indian football was once upon a time. A fixture between Mohan Bagan and East Bengal was enough to turn Calcutta wild with excitement. Mohan Bagan was among the oldest football clubs in Asia, founded in 1889. The world's oldest football competition outside England is India's Durand Cup, started in 1888 and still going strong. Run by the army, it began to be co-hosted by Osians, the arts foundation, from 2006. Entry to the ground is free and the winner gets Rs 50 lakhs.

Small wonder that the Indian team made quite an impact in the 1948 Olympics in London. The record crowd was dumb-struck when they saw the Indians enter the field barefoot. Shock turned into admiration as the bootless men put up a fight, keeping possession of the ball for impressive durations and scoring an equalising goal. The French eventually won 2-1 with a last-minute shot. In the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne India reached the semifinals. In February 2012 The London Economist devoted its famous obituary page to Sailen Manna who had starred in the London Olympics and captained the Indian team for a while thereafter. Calling him "a saint among footballers", the magazine wrote: "For a very short while, in his time, [India] walked in the sun as a world-class footballing nation".

It is important to know that Sailen Manna who belonged to the Mohan Bagan team was never paid a salary. Even to buy their club jersey team members had to spend their own money. Manna managed to make ends meet with a job in the Geological Survey of India. How times have changed. Football has made Christiano Ronaldo the world's richest star. Indian cricketers have so much money they have trouble counting it. Indian footballers are spared that trouble because they have nothing to count. In cricket politicians threw money to make money. In other sports, politicians simply played politics.

This great Indian tragedy was highlighted by the Supreme Court itself when the rivalry between two hockey associations came up for its consideration in 2013. Lamenting the "abysmally low" levels to which hockey had fallen, the Court said: "Private individuals are controlling the games in India. Indian sports persons are at the mercy of politicians and businessmen... These officials run the federations at the cost of the game".

Words of wisdom, but the monkey sees no wisdom, hears on wisdom, speaks no wisdom. And the monkey wins.

Is the BJP managing decisions in the Congress? Did it send a bird to scare Karnataka's CM?

The BJP's luck must be at its zenith, otherwise the Congress cannot be gripped by such an unstoppable death wish. Even reigning Congress chieftains seem to be working for the party's demolition. When Kerala's Industry Minister Kunjalikutty promoted patently corrupt projects in the last days of the government's term, Chief Minister Chandy must have known that he was signing his government's death warrant. Karnataka, the only other Congress state in the south, is repeating the same story. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah reshuffled his cabinet in such a way that the defeat of the Congress in the next state election is assured. Why doesn't Rahul Gandhi keep his men in line? Well, in Kerala his men defied him and he had to take it lying down. In Karnataka... sorry, he is on holiday abroad, place and duration top secrets.

With the Congress so helpful, the BJP makes public relations blunders one after another and yet remains on top of the heap. It appointed a series of half-baked fellow travellers to head some of the country's hallowed institutions; it kept quiet when independent thinking was ridiculed and, not infrequently, suppressed violently; it put up unworthy characters to make incendiary calls like "Muslim-mukt Bharat".

In normal times people propagating such petty bigotry would have had to face the law of the land. Not only do BJP jingoists float above it all; the party increases its vote share in proportion to the decline and fall of other parties, the latest example of the effectiveness of the TINA principle (There Is No Alternative). The incompetence of the Congress gives the principle its biggest boost for the Congress is the only party with a national footprint.

The way the Congress rules itself out as an alternative suggests that its decisions are made by BJP's undercover agents. How else can one explain Kamal Nath being made the Congress's man in charge of Punjab elections? One of the smartest political operators in India, Nath was a lead player in the Congress-sponsored anti-Sikh riots following Indira Gandhi's assassination. Putting such a man in charge of soliciting Sikh votes in the Punjab says something about how things are in the Congress. Nath's subsequent withdrawal is unlikely to undo the damage.

The damage done in Karnataka is worse because, after Karnataka too is lost, the Congress will be faceless in a region that had stood by it in its worst moments. Kerala alone voted for the Congress in the post-Emergency election. After Indira Gandhi was defeated in her home constituency of Rae Bareli in 1977, it was Chikmagalur in Karnataka that sent her to Parliament in a byelection the next year.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had been undermining the Congress steadily, by giving the impression that he never applied his mind to the issues that cried out for attention, that he never really cared. His image had become so negative that an alert high command would have gracefully kicked him upstairs and put a more pro-active leader in the chief minister's chair.

What the high command did instead was to let him appoint a virtually new cabinet. True, the 14 ministers who were dropped deserved to be dropped. Unfortunately, the 13 new ministers who were appointed did not deserve to be appointed either. There was no logic, either caste-wise or age-wise, in the reshuffle. There was no "correction" either. Rahul Gandhi had asked Siddaramaiah when he became chief minister back in 2013 to keep two "senior" Congressmen out of the cabinet because of their long record of corruption. They were kept out initially. But seasoned manipulators in Delhi saw that Rahul Gandhi's diktat was quietly sidelined and the two tainted men taken into the cabinet. They are still there, still tainted.

One of them playing the Vokkaliga card may be overtaken by another who has successfully played the Lingayat card. The old war horse B.S.Yeddyurappa is all set to return to the chair which he had to leave in disgrace in 2011. Appropriate notices were given by a little black bird that perched on the bonnet of Siddaramaiah's new SUV and would not budge despite proddings by law enforcers. The Chief Minister must have sensed a BJP manoeuvre. He promptly acquired another new SUV. But
The black bird scare
Floats in the air

Modi scored sensational success in US. But then he suddenly turned to Russia. What's up?

Narendra Modi's triumphalist performance at the US Congress set off the usual fan frenzy in India. (This organised brouhaha over every Modi visit abroad is losing its sheen through repetition). However, the hype should not prevent us from recognising the political importance the Prime Minister's fourth visit to the US achieved. For the first time India appeared to fall into America's military-industrial web. This has been a long-cherished ambition of not only Washington but also influential lobbies in India's political, administrative and intellectual circles. Modi seemed to follow their script. But immediately thereafter he took steps that pointed to possible second thoughts about what he had achieved in America.

Indians promoting American interests in India had their first victory at the policy level during the early phase of Indira Gandhi's prime ministership. This was ironic because Indira was to build her strength on the slogan of socialism and Nixon-Kissinger's America was to use dirty words to describe her. But in the 1960s her most trusted cabinet colleagues were Food Minister C.Subramanian and Planning Minister Asoka Mehta. They were also America's most trusted friends in India. They were backed by a good chunk of our senior civil servants who looked up to the World Bank-IMF as paragons of international virtue.

Then came, in the 1990s, the ultimate strategic guru, K.Subramanyam. A former civil servant and journalist, Subramanyam became the architect of India's nuclear doctrine and the India-US civil nuclear energy agreement. His position was that India should have strategic partnership with the US in order to strengthen Indian economy and to compete with China technologically and militarily. Prime Ministers Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh paid heed to his advice, but without crossing what had come to be known as India's independent line.

There must have been developments in Delhi, unbeknown to the general public, that brought about a subtle departure from the Vajpayee-Manmohan line. In 2013 the leading American think tank, Brooklyn Institute, opened a branch in New Delhi to give "recommendations to Indian policy makers". This year the other leading American think tank, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also opened a branch in Delhi to "collaborate with decision makers in [Indian] government, business and civil society". Two powerful American establishments to help decision-making in India?

We can now see the larger picture into which the Modi visit fitted. It could not have been a coincidence that US senators who were critical of Modi before supported him now as they hailed the "Modi doctrine" and moved to pass a special Global Partnership With India Act. The joint statement from the White House declared that India had been upgraded into a "major defence partner". This meant, as experts pointed out, that India would be qualified to buy sophisticated modern weaponry from the US. In other words, India's elevation meant better prospects for America's weapons sales. The significant advantages America gained must be the reason why major US newspapers, which had paid scant attention to Modi's earlier visits, now played up the importance of America's closeness to India.

But Modi, there is ground to believe, has become a savvy player in international relations. As soon as he left the shores of America, he must have realised that becoming America's strategic partner essentially meant becoming part of America's strategic move to contain China. To be sure, China has accelerated building up Pakistan, including its nuclear capability, to contain India. Should India respond by ganging up with the US against China, or by trying to tell China that other choices are available?

The question must have occurred to Modi, for the first thing he did on getting back home was to phone, of all people, Vladimir Putin. Russia has had a long history of trusting relations with India which included transfer of military technology. This had come under strain on account of Manmohan Singh's overtures to America. At the same time, US-NATO hostility has forced Russia to forge extremely close relations with China. This makes Moscow the best possible interlocutor between India and China.

We must hope that Modi saw the un-wisdom of directly antagonising China. It would be in China's interests, too, to help improve relations with India. Modi must have calculated that the Shangai Cooperation Council's meeting in Tashkent next week is an opportunity not to be missed. India is to become a full-fledged member of the SCC at this meeting, opening new avenues for cooperation and understanding. Tashkent, more than Washington, will decide the way things move -- for Asia and for Narendra Modi.

Opposition parties struggle to form an alliance to stop the BJP. But how to find a leader?

In politics one party's shukradasa depends on another party's shanidasa. The stars are so propitious for the BJP these days that other parties are struggling to figure out how they can re-position the planets in order to survive. Since the planets are a-political, they may have no objection in giving all players equal opportunity. But the saying is "half by me, half by God". Who is to do the by-me half that will persuade the heavenly bodies to do the rest?

Forget the Congress. When the obvious stared it in the face, it stood dumb. The octogenarian Tarun Gogoi had created an anti-incumbency tsunami in Assam with three consecutive terms. Himanta Biswas, half his age and functioning as the defacto chief minister, called for a change to win the election. The High Command remained numb and dumb. Biswas joined the BJP and the rest was history. In Kerala Oommen Chandy insisted on nominating his tainted friends as candidates. The High Command told him not to. Chandy then threatened that he would not contest either. Whereupon the High Command went numb and dumb and the rest was history. Forget the Congress. It doesn't even seem to know what's going on.

Which way then should the planets look? The silver lining is the realisation by almost all players that they should get together on the principle that unity is strength. The BJP itself embraced this principle and tied up with all sorts of regional groupings. The other parties know that any alliance they form cannot be led by the Congress. Even the more sober Congress leaders recognise this though no one will speak out due to the High Command culture that rules them.

So who will lead the alliance? At Mamata Bannerjee's swearing-in, the assemblage of non-Congress leaders was impressive enough to make many dreamers dream. Nitish Kumar, Akhilesh Yadav, Arvind Kejriwal and Farooq Abdullah sharing happiness with Mamata was indeed an unusual spectacle. But a closer look shows that the dreamers don't have much to dream about.

Two important personages were conspicuously absent -- Jayalalithaa and Mayawati. Among those present, Farooq is no longer relevant and his dynasty is faring no better than the one in Delhi. Kejriwal is a question mark, his position as Delhi Chief Minister continuously compromised by a scheming BJP and his bonafides put in doubt by his early associates. Akhilesh Yadav is a reminder of the dangers that grip Indian politics. He is only a figurehead, his father running the show with antediluvian ideas of power, celebrating his birthdays like an emperor of yore and not hesitating to appoint convicted associates as ministers. Nitish Kumar has the ambition to become a national leader and has some of the qualities required. But what is his administrative calibre when he is unable to end lawlessness in Bihar? Nor has he made his presence felt in Punjab or Maharashtra or the South. He does not have an all-India visage.

Of those assembled in Kolkata, the star was Mamata Bannerjee herself. Her stint in Delhi, especially as railway minister, made her known across the country. But her record as chief minister has been marred by whimsicality, favouritism, authoritarianism and refusal to accept responsibility for lapses on the law and order front. Will the second term she has won with an overwhelming majority help her see the opportunity that stares her in the face -- the opportunity to project her as a leader with the potential to grow beyond West Bengal? She can make a serious bid if she listens to experts. A few speaking engagements in other states will generate interest on a large enough scale because of her image as a grassroots leader. She will also have to respect the sentiments of other leaders.

Her biggest problem will be to work out any kind of understanding with the Congress. The last election saw the Congress joining hands with Mamata's sworn enemies, the Communists. A few days ago Rahul Gandhi said openly that the alliance with the Communists should continue. Which highlights the conundrums of the moment: Who is the Congress's principal enemy, Mamata's Trinamool or the BJP? Who is the Communists' principal enemy, Mamata's Trinamool or the BJP? Who is Mamata's principal enemy, the Communists or the BJP?

When conundrums keep the opposition divided, the BJP nestles comfortably with the Assam Gana Parishad and the Akalis and the Kerala SNDP. The BJP's shukradasa looks set to continue because the Congress's, the Communists', the JDU's shanidasa looks set to continue.